Panel 2: Séraphine Kilongozi Musambi, Katy Hindle, Jean-Jacques Badibanga and Delphine Djiraïbé. When working in complex cultural contexts, there is a need to consider how to approach victims or survivors of sexual and gender-based violence as potential witnesses, particularly when cultural contexts make the subject taboo. Badibanga highlighted that this case was about the responsibility of the superior, and touched on the question of accountability of the superior, where rape has been used as a technique or as a method by his soldiers against the civilian population. Third, he highlighted that, in most cases, the rape of men is qualified as torture or as an inhumane act, but in this case, it was classified as rape, which is unique. He noted, however, that only two men would testify in this case and these were the two counts admitted by the chamber, but simply qualifying it as rape was a challenge. Finally, Badibanga noted the generational impact that Bemba’s crimes would have. He argued that these types of crimes have the tendency to impact communities as a whole, as well as future generations. For him, the weight of this impact and its emphasis by the prosecution in the sentencing phase was one of the crucial factors in securing Bemba’s conviction of 18 years, which is a grand premier at the ICC. Badibanga further discussed some of the logistical challenges in securing and working with witnesses for the trial. Securing witnesses was made difficult by the time lapse between the event, which took place in 2002 and 2003, and the trial’s commencement in 2010. It was important, then, to take into consideration the person’s good health as well as victims who may have moved on from the experience with no intention of bringing it up again. It was also important to take into consideration security concerns as, for witnesses, talking to investigators or NGOs might mean that there are consequences for taking part in the trial. Badibanga further discussed the challenges involved in the fact that the case had more than 5 000 victims, represented by two legal representatives. This was the first time that this number of victims was represented. Badibanga noted that, unfortunately, this was only the number of victims who could get access to the legal proceedings; there were many more victims in the Central African Republic conflict who could not get access to the court case. Badibanga concluded his presentation by highlighting several prevailing issues in terms of the prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence cases. These include the following: • When working in complex cultural contexts, there is a need to consider how to approach victims or survivors of sexual and gender-based violence as potential witnesses, particularly when cultural contexts make the subject taboo; • Badibanga raised the challenge of eliciting all the elements of the crimes as defined by the Rome Statute during the witness’s testimony in court. Questioning can be intrusive and a balance needs to be found between protecting the witness and being sensitive on one hand, and the legal requirements for establishing the crime on the other hand. A good interview of the witness during the investigation phase could PANEL 2: Case studies on accountability for sexual and gender-based violence in conflict /7